Lasso tricks, knife throwing, and horseback riding were among the specialties of the successful early 20th century Afro German circus Leyseck & Jackson. However, the owners concealed their true identities, presenting themselves instead as white South African settlers and Black South Africans. Why? They felt compelled to meet the colonial-racist expectations of their audiences. Among the family members was Dorothea Katharina Jackson, born in 1885 to a Black American father and a white German mother. She married into the German circus family Leyseck. Starting in the 1920s, the circus company’s situation deteriorated as racism intensified. By 1935, artists of color could usually only find precarious work, and even that required a special permit. In 1937, now widowed, Dorothea felt compelled to write a letter to the National Socialist Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in which she pretended to be a South West African who was loyal to Germany, yet she was still denied permission to perform on stage. Dorothea did return to the stage as an entertainer in the 1950s, but she continued to use her false identity, probably out of economic necessity.
The real voices of Black artists were silenced. But we’re bringing them back!
writes Fatima Sidibe on her Instagram account @africandiva__. In collaboration with a project at the University of Marburg, she presents the biography of Dorothea Katharina Jackson Leyseck: “The family was only able to make a stable living by adopting an identity that offered the audience a kind of ‘authentic foreignness.’ … We see a similar pattern [today] among Afro-German actors, who are overwhelmingly cast in roles portraying gangsters and drug dealers. … Racist images from the Nazi era still have an effect.”
The project “Kontinuitäten von Anti- Schwarzen-Rassismus vor, während und nach dem Nationalsozialismus. Eine partizipative Erinnerungsintervention” [Continuities in Anti-Black Racism Before, During, and After National Socialism: An Intervention in Participatory Remembrance] is an example of working on and with the biographies of Black individuals persecuted during the Nazi era.
Explore further: www.instagram.com/africandiva__
Georg Brönner was only six years old in 1935 when he was placed in institutional care at the Vinzentinum in Würzburg due to alleged “indecent” behavior and “neglect.” After another period with his father and stepmother, he was put back in the youth home in 1942. He later recalled:
I learned shoemaking from Master Guerberitze there. Then from Würzburg I came here [to Herzogsägmühle reformatory].
Georg’s biological mother was Jewish and was murdered in 1942 at the Bernburg “euthanasia” killing center. As a “half-Jew” in institutional care, Georg was subjected to multiple layers of stigma and repression. In 1943, a Nazi decree was issued ordering all underage persons of “first-degree Jewish ancestry” in care to be transferred to Hadamar reformatory. Of the 45 children concerned, only five escaped being murdered at Hadamar. Georg Brönner was killed there by the Nazis on January 31, 1945 at the age of 15, most likely by medication. It was not until the 1980s that efforts were made to start investigating the history of the Hadamar killing center and commemorate its victims. A Stolperstein [memorial stone] was installed in Würzburg in 2016 to commemorate the life and fate of Georg Brönner.
The project “Verachtet – verfolgt – vergessen: Die Opfer der NS-Gesundheitspolitik – Lernen für heute und morgen!” [Despised – Persecuted – Forgotten: The Victims of National Socialist Health Policy – Learning For Today and Tomorrow!] develops educational and awareness-raising materials in cooperation with professionals from the social and healthcare sectors and with relatives’ groups.
Find out more: www.lernort-herzogsaegmuehle.de
“What was it like to be wounded in the German army and not speak German?” This question appears alongside drawings on a student’s storyboard about Nazi-era survivor Robert Prince. Students from Illkirch-Graffenstaden in Alsace explored the fates of the Malgré-Nous – people from occupied Alsace-Lorraine who were forcibly conscripted into the Wehrmacht during World War II.
One of them was Robert Prince, born in 1925 in Saulxures. The German civil administration first sent him to the Reich Labor Service in Kassel, then forced him into Wehrmacht service in 1943, deploying him to the German-Polish border. There Robert was made to blow up bridges and lay and clear mines. Because he didn’t speak German, he was forced into silence. In 1944 he suffered a severe knee injury. While he was recovering, he met a French-speaking doctor who helped him obtain a leave permit. Robert returned to Alsace and went into hiding. “What are you doing here, Robert? We’ll get in trouble!” said his grandmother when he arrived in Saint-Blaise. He survived World War II hidden in a barn at his parents’ home in Saulxures. To this day, Robert Prince and other surviving Malgré-Nous are still sometimes branded as collaborators out of sheer ignorance.
The project “Bridge for the Future – Pont pour l’avenir” encourages young people in Baden and Alsace to explore different perspectives on the past and present of the Upper Rhine region and its communities through research and innovative biography work, as well as by means of nonverbal approaches such as dance.
Read more: www.brueckefuerdiezukunft.de
Author: Sarah Keller, Stiftung EVZ
